CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Keri
‘Damn it!” Kyle swore as he paced up and down in front of the open gate.
From the information we’d managed to gather, we suspected Crystal had left to infiltrate the rogue like we’d planned. She’d spoken to the tracker who’d given her the information of where the pack was and she’d left straightaway. But we had no guarantee that she’d make it into the pack before they moved.
I rubbed my forehead. I’d never thought for one second that she would still go through with it. If I’d even thought about it I would never have left her alone. My eyes stayed on a frazzled Kyle who was getting more upset and agitated by the second.
He is going to do something stupid, said Blake through the mind-link.
I know, I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on Kyle.
He stopped pacing as he ran an agitated hand through his hair and faced me.
“We have to go after her,” he told me, his eyes pleading with mine.
Blake and I shared a look before I looked back at Kyle.
“You need to calm down and we need to figure out the best way to deal with this,” I explained to him as calmly as I could, but he shook his head.
“We’ll just be wasting time. We need to leave now to catch up with her and the pack,” he argued.
He wasn’t thinking like an alpha with a clear mind. His emotions were clouding his thoughts. Even though he didn’t know she was his mate, he obviously cared deeply for her.
“You know tracking down the pack is not going to be easy and, even if we do, you know that trying to attack them will more than likely put Crystal in a more dangerous situation,” I reminded him.
He pressed his lips together as he balled his hands into fists.
“I can’t stand here and do nothing,” he said, and I felt his pain.
It would take an army to keep me from going after Blake if he were in the same situation as Crystal, but thankfully Kyle still didn’t know that Crystal was his mate. Telling him now would only cause more trouble so I decided to keep it to myself until we sorted everything out.
It wasn’t about protecting ourselves; I was protecting him. If he knew, he would do something stupid and he would end up getting killed. I cared about him so I’d do everything I could to keep him safe. When I didn’t respond, Kyle’s jaw tensed and I saw the determination build up in his face.
“I won’t stand here and do nothing,” he added with steeliness in his voice.
He was forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do. Two guards joined us as Scarlett and Cade walked up to us.
“You know that going after her isn’t the best solution,” Blake said, trying to get him to look at the bigger picture.
Kyle remained silent and glared at Blake, so he hadn’t noticed the two guards standing just behind him.
“You know they’re right,” Scarlett said, standing beside her brother. She wrapped a hand around his arm. “We need to figure out the best way to get her out without her getting harmed.”
He refused to look at his sister as he shrugged his arm out of her hold.
“If I have to, I’ll do this alone,” he said, and I felt my heart sink.
Restrain him, I commanded the guards.
“What the hell?” Kyle yelled as the guards grabbed each arm and held him forcefully.
“Let me go,” he commanded them, but they didn’t budge. His eyes shot to mine. “Please don’t do this.”
But I had to.
“You’ve left me no choice,” I told him calmly, even though on the inside I was already feeling the guilt of my actions. “You’re my friend and I have to make sure you don’t do something stupid.”
“Don’t do this,” he whispered when he realized I wasn’t going to back down.
I shook my head and he turned his attention to his sister.
“Scarlett,” he pleaded. Scarlett held his gaze.
“Your emotions are clouding your judgment,” she said, trying to explain why she wasn’t going to help him. “If I—we—let you go, you might end up getting killed and I can’t let that happen.”
Kyle began to fight against the hold of the guards and tried to pull himself free when he realized we weren’t going to release him. Cade grabbed Scarlett away from Kyle so she wouldn’t get hurt while he fought to break free of the guards.
Lock him up, I informed them.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Kyle promised me as the guards dragged him away.
It felt like a knife had been plunged into my chest and I struggled to breathe, the pain was so bad.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Blake assured me as he took my hand into his. Even our connection couldn’t ease my guilt.
“Then why do I feel so crappy?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t always easy,” he said, trying to comfort me.
“I’ve been in his shoes. He will get over it,” Scarlett added as she came to stand beside me. “We just need to get her back safely.”
Cade had sedated her when he’d suspected that she was about to hand herself over to my father to save them all. Getting Crystal back was easier said than done. There were so many things that could go wrong, but I had to believe that we would bring her back alive.
Curtis, I called out through the mind-link, meet us in the meeting room.
The sooner we sat down and discussed the best way forward, the sooner we’d be able get Crystal back for Kyle.
As we walked to the meeting, I tried to ignore the nagging voice in the back of my mind that kept telling me that he might not forgive me if he knew that I’d kept the fact that she was his mate from him. I tried to keep the emotions that were swirling inside of me from breaking free. I needed to keep calm so I would make the correct decisions, otherwise they wouldn’t be any better than the decision I was trying to keep Kyle from making.
“How sure are we that she went to the rogue pack?” Scarlett asked as soon as we were seated and Curtis joined us.
“Pretty sure. My tracker told me that he gave her the details of where the rogue pack was. He had no idea we’d called it off,” I informed her.
“Is the pack still in the same place?” Scarlett asked.
I shook my head. They’ve already moved and we are busy tracking them again.
“Did any of the trackers see Crystal?” Cade asked.
I shook my head.
“So there is a chance that she isn’t with them?” he said.
I nodded. He leaned back in his seat as his eyes went to Scarlett and he reached for her hand.
But if she wasn’t with them, where was she?
We were in quite a predicament. We had no way of knowing if Crystal was in the rogue pack. If she were, we would have to play it out like we’d initially planned and wait for her to give us the details of the pack that the rogues planned to attack first. If she weren’t with them, we were back to square one and it left us vulnerable to the rogues. We also had no idea where Crystal was.
“What are we going to do?” Scarlett asked.
“There isn’t a lot we can do,” Blake explained, rubbing his chin. “If we wait for her and she isn’t in the rogue pack, we are screwed because we will be sitting ducks. If we managed to pinpoint the position of the rogue pack long enough to attack, we run the risk of endangering Crystal if she is with them and we’d be leaving our packs open to an attack.”
Scarlett looked visibly worried. “We can’t attack them if she’s there,” she said.
“But then we run the risk of endangering our packs that depend on us if we don’t attack them,” Cade explained in a hard voice. Their eyes clashed and I could see a fight brewing. They were both headstrong and not fond of backing down.
“Stop,” I instructed. “Fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
“What do you think?” Blake asked while he studied me.
“I think we need to give her time. Let’s give her a day to get information back to us. If we don’t hear from her, we have to either accept that she didn’t make it to the pack in time or something else happened to stop her from contacting us.”
My eyes met Scarlett’s and I saw her fear. It reflected mine. We both knew Kyle cared for Crystal, but I was the only one who knew that they were mates. There was a chance that the rogues would kill her if they suspected that she could be an implant.
I left the meeting room alone. I wanted to talk to Kyle. Blake had been reluctant to let me go on my own, but I’d assured him I would be fine. My wounds were healing and I was feeling stronger every day. I just hoped that I would be back to my full physical strength soon because we would need every werewolf we had to fight off a potential attack.
I took a deep breath and released it before I entered the room. Kyle sat with his head in his hands and at the sound of my entrance he lifted his eyes to meet mine. I didn't know what to say and I was sure that anything I did say wasn't going to make any of this better. The door closed behind me.
"Say what you have to and get out," he said indifferently. His cold eyes held mine and I felt like I was looking at a stranger instead of my friend.
He was angry with me and I understood why, but it didn’t help me from feeling miserable inside. Even if I had the best intentions, to him I was stopping him from doing something he believed was the best decision. We both thought we were right. It was the first time I felt really scared that he may not be able to forgive me for what I'd done even if it had been the right thing to do and in my shoes he would have done the same.
"We're going to give Crystal twenty-four hours to check in with us to confirm that she has infiltrated the pack," I continued.
"What if she doesn't check in?" he asked calmly, although I could feel the anger radiating from him.
"If she doesn't, then we have to face the fact that something must have happened…”
I didn’t want to put my fear into words.
“If she dies, I will blame you.”
I kept his gaze, unwavering, although his words hurt me. If we failed and she died, I would have to live with the guilt.
“I’ll do everything I can to bring her back safely,” I promised him.
“If you care about me you’ll let me go so I can get her,” he said, and I saw a spark of hope in his eyes.
I shook my head.
“You’re not thinking straight and you will make a mistake that may cost you and Crystal your lives,” I reasoned with him.
“You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t do the same if you were in my place,” he said, trying to argue a new angle. “If someone you cared about was in danger, you would do whatever you could to protect them.”
My eyes rested on him for a moment.
“If I were in your situation, I’d be thankful that I had people who cared enough about me to keep me from making a mistake I would regret.”
He shook his head as his jaw tightened. No matter what he said, there was no way I was going to release him.
“I’ll keep you updated,” I said. The guard to the cell opened the door and I left without a backward glance.
Once outside, I stopped and took a deep breath to ease the hurt I felt at his indifference to me. He’d become my closest friend and it was hard staying firm on my decision when he was so angry with me.
“You okay?” Blake asked as he walked up to me and scanned my features. I nodded my head.
“I don’t like doing this to him,” I told him and he pulled me into a hug. His lips pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.
“I know,” he whispered against my hair as I leaned into him.
“Has anyone heard anything from Crystal yet?” I asked.
“No.”
One second ticked into another and a minute turned into an hour. The wait was torture.
We were all in the meeting except for Curtis. As much as I wanted him with us, he needed to ensure our medical center was organized and the medical supplies were replenished. No matter what the outcome with Crystal was, we were going to be going up against the rogues at some point and we needed to make sure we were as prepared as we could be.
I sat at the table with a cup of coffee in my hands, trying to calm my increasing anxiousness by staring into the liquid that I held. I was trying to find the answers that I needed to keep everyone alive. Blake and Cade spoke softly to each other in the corner while Scarlett paced up and down like a restless lioness. The room was filled with a nervous tension. Every moment we sat there without any news was torture.
As bad as it was for us, I was sure it was much worse for Kyle. It was hard to believe that he had no idea his mate was someone he’d known his whole life. Touching your mate only worked from the time they turned sixteen. I had no idea how old Crystal was, but I’d guess she was probably a year or two older than me—which meant she’d managed to keep him from touching her for a whole year at least.
I let out a frustrated sigh as I pushed the cup away from me. There was so much riding on this and the more time that went by without any word from Crystal, the more I worried. I tried to suppress a yawn but I saw Blake’s eyes on me. It had been a long and stressful day.
“I think it’s time to try and get some sleep,” Blake suggested as he came to stand beside me. I looked up at him.
“I don’t think I can sleep with all of this going on,” I told him. He reached for my hand and the touch of our connection gave me a feeling of peace, but I knew that it wouldn’t last. He helped me to my feet.
“You can try,” he suggested, and I nodded my head. Maybe just the change of scenery would ease some of my stress.
Blake gave Cade and Scarlett a nod as he led me from the meeting room. It was evening already and the moon shone brightly in the dark sky.
Once inside my room, I shared a shower with Blake and then we climbed into bed. I lay with my head on his chest. The quiet around me was only broken by the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear. I squeezed him tight for a moment. I was so glad that I had him and it was at times like this that I appreciated that we’d found each other and we’d made it through all the deception. He was safe in my arms and that was more than some people had.
A couple of hours later I was still wide awake and staring at the ceiling. Blake was sleeping peacefully beside me and I was glad one of us was getting some sleep.
Crystal has checked in. The message came through the mind-link from one of the guards at the gates.
I shot up in the bed, feeling relieved.
“What’s wrong?” Blake asked, sitting up still half asleep.
“Crystal has checked in,” I told him as I got out of bed and started to get dressed.
“Where are you going?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“I need to talk to the guards and I want to tell Kyle,” I explained. Even though it was too early for most people to be awake, I knew that, like me, Kyle wouldn’t be sleeping.
“Wait and I’ll come with you,” Blake said as he got out of the bed.
“I can do this,” I stated. As much as I loved the fact that he constantly worried about me and wanted to be at my side all the time, I was an Alpha and I could handle this on my own.
He studied me for a moment as I shoved my feet into my shoes.
“Okay,” he said. Somehow he understood.
I pressed my lips to his cheek and he watched me leave.
I rushed out of the room and to the gates. For the first time, I felt hopeful that things were going to work out.